This invention relates to a joint bridging construction for bridges or like structures where sealing bodies, which are flush with the upper side of the roadway and are made of elastic material, are with the aid of beads inserted from above in upwardly open recesses of the edge beams and, as the case may be, of movable intermediate members and are secured against being drawn out by holding bodies which are substantially circular in cross-section.
In the prior art, a number of joint bridging constructions have been developed which have several disadvantages. For example, German Offenlegungsschrift No. 2,516,427 (FIG. 4) has made known such a joint bridging construction. The edge beams or intermediate members in this known construction each have an upwardly open groove into which the sealing body is inserted; the flanks of the grooves are obliquely arranged so that the grooves narrow in upward direction. Those rims of the sealing body which face toward the flanks are recessed such that the holding body can be moved between the flank walls and the sealing body in the direction toward the edge beam or the intermediate member. Since on the one hand the sealing body is exposed to very strong suction forces which in the direction transverse to the joint are caused by the load of the vehicles driving on the roadway, there is the danger that the sealing body gets out of its groove; the recess between the groove wall and sealing body wall is also exposed to contaminations from the roadway surface. Finally, the movable members defining the grooves extend upwardly to the roadway surface so that when a vehicle drives on the joint bridging construction, noises are caused thereby.
German Pat. No. 2,511,278, issued Dec. 8, 1977, shows another joint bridging construction for bridges or like structures where the edge beads of the sealing body are anchored in horizontal recesses in the edge beam or intermediate member and where is also provided a similar doweling between sealing body and edge beam or intermediate member, insertion and removal of the known sealing body is relatively difficult and is impossible if the joint is closed.